89 miles N of Helena; 219 miles NW of Billings
Great Falls, named for a series of waterfalls on the Missouri River, is a city of about 55,000, making it Montana's third largest (after Billings and Missoula). An important cog in the U.S. military strategy, it is the home of Malmstrom Air Force Base, which several times has been threatened with closure (which would devastate the city) but has also been tabbed the launching point for the X-33 VentureStar, the space shuttle of the future.
But the country around Great Falls looks much as Charlie Russell found it and painted it at the end of the 19th century. Russell made his home Great Falls, and did much of his painting in his studio there.
Nearly a century before Russell's day, Lewis and Clark came through with the Corps of Discovery in 1805, making an 18-mile portage around the falls. It is a somewhat sad sign of Great Falls' progress that it is now known as "The Electric City," because the falls that Lewis and Clark marveled at have been tamed by a series of dams to provide electric power.
